honor or thank

God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodly behavior and the injustice of human beings who silence the truth with injustice. This is because what is known about God should be plain to them because God made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made. So humans are without excuse. Although they knew God, they didn’t honor God as God or thank him. Instead, their reasoning became pointless, and their foolish hearts were darkened. While they were claiming to be wise, they made fools of themselves. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that look like mortal humans: birds, animals, and reptiles. So God abandoned them to their hearts’ desires, which led to the moral corruption of degrading their own bodies with each other. They traded God’s truth for a lie, and they worshipped and served the creation instead of the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:18-25, CEB)

When was the last time you woke up and thanked God for allowing you to live another day?

Do you honor God in the way you live?

Do you put others before yourself?

Do you love like God?

When we focus on our needs and desires and do what is best for us, we do not honor God in the way we live.

We need to seek the needs of others and love as God loves us, unconditionally.

Loving People. Loving God.

struggle

“To what will I compare this generation? It is like a child sitting in the marketplaces calling out to others, ‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a funeral song and you didn’t mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ Yet the Human One came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved to be right by her works.” Then he began to scold the cities where he had done his greatest miracles because they didn’t change their hearts and lives. “How terrible it will be for you, Chorazin! How terrible it will be for you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their hearts and lives and put on funeral clothes and ashes a long time ago. But I say to you that Tyre and Sidon will be better off on Judgment Day than you. And you, Capernaum, will you be honored by being raised up to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to the place of the dead. After all, if the miracles that were done among you had been done in Sodom, it would still be here today. But I say to you that it will be better for the land of Sodom on the Judgment Day than it will be for you.” At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness. “My Father has handed all things over to me. No one knows the Son except the Father. And nobody knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:16-30, CEB)

Come to Jesus, all who are struggling and carrying heavy loads and you will find rest. Jesus will put his yoke upon you and you will learn how to move.

You see the yoke is a device that distributes the weight of the load to you and Jesus. Jesus’ burden is light and he is ready and willing to take on your load.

So know that the promises are true and Jesus is waiting for you to take his yoke and release yourself from the burdens of life. You don’t need to do this alone.

You are never alone.

Loving People. Loving God.

Joy

At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness. My Father has handed all things over to me. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.” Turning to the disciples, he said privately, “Happy are the eyes that see what you see. I assure you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.” (Luke 10:21-24, CEB)

Jesus is overjoyed because those who think they got it didn’t and those who shouldn’t get it do.

Those who acknowledge they do not know and need help are the ones who really get what God is doing. When you are puffed up and assume you have been taught all the answers and know everything about God you will never actually get it until you step back and acknowledge you really don’t know and need help.

Make Jesus jump for joy and say you need help.

Loving People. Loving God.

desire

So what are we going to say? That the Law is sin? Absolutely not! But I wouldn’t have known sin except through the Law. I wouldn’t have known the desire for what others have if the Law had not said, Don’t desire to take what others have. But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law. I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death. Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me. So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. So did something good bring death to me? Absolutely not! But sin caused my death through something good so that sin would be exposed as sin. That way sin would become even more thoroughly sinful through the commandment. We know that the Law is spiritual, but I’m made of flesh and blood, and I’m sold as a slave to sin. I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate. But if I’m doing the thing that I don’t want to do, I’m agreeing that the Law is right. But now I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it’s sin that lives in me. I know that good doesn’t live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. But if I do the very thing that I don’t want to do, then I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it. (Romans 7:7-20, CEB)

Human desire is self-preservation.

Human desire is to take care of self first.

This is sinful behavior because it focuses our attention on ourselves and not on God and others.

I think Paul is making a point here that the law shows us what is turning us away from God, but I also think that we do not need the law to know that we focus on ourselves.

Know that good is in you and you can focus on God and others. Allow God to live through you.

Know that you do not need to worry about yourself, because when we focus on God and others, then others are focusing on you.

Show love and mercy in everything you do.

Loving People. Loving God.

law

Brothers and sisters, I’m talking to you as people who know the Law. Don’t you know that the Law has power over someone only as long as he or she lives? A married woman is united with her husband under the Law while he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released from the Law concerning her husband. So then, if she lives with another man while her husband is alive, she’s committing adultery. But if her husband dies, she’s free from the Law, so she won’t be committing adultery if she marries someone else. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also died with respect to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you could be united with someone else. You are united with the one who was raised from the dead so that we can bear fruit for God. When we were self-centered, the sinful passions aroused through the Law were at work in all the parts of our body, so that we bore fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law. We have died with respect to the thing that controlled us, so that we can be slaves in the new life under the Spirit, not in the old life under the written Law. (Romans 7:1-6, CEB)

The Law is only in effect while you are alive. And once you die the law no longer has control.

And through Jesus, we died to the law, so the law has no control over us. So then we can not quote the law to say someone is not doing what God calls for them to do. Since they are in Christ and a new creation, the law can not be used to say they are not in a right relationship with God because the law has no effect on them.

Do not use the law against one who is in Christ. We are all either free from the law, or none of us are free from the law.

We are called to love not judge.

Loving People. Loving God.

change

Then he began to scold the cities where he had done his greatest miracles because they didn’t change their hearts and lives. “How terrible it will be for you, Chorazin! How terrible it will be for you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their hearts and lives and put on funeral clothes and ashes a long time ago. But I say to you that Tyre and Sidon will be better off on Judgment Day than you. And you, Capernaum, will you be honored by being raised up to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to the place of the dead. After all, if the miracles that were done among you had been done in Sodom, it would still be here today. But I say to you that it will be better for the land of Sodom on the Judgment Day than it will be for you.” (Matthew 11:20-24, CEB)

What change did these cities not have? Right before this Jesus says that this generation is like a child crying out who didn’t get their way, or that they did something according to the way it had always been done and people did not respond the correct way. Going from that, would make me think that the change that didn’t happen was focusing on others.

We have a set of rules to follow and those help us maintain a godly way, yet they have us focusing on our actions and not our motives. We are focused on keeping the status quo and not the need of the other.

And that was the sin of Sodom, they were not hospitable to the stranger. And had the miracles done in Chorazin and Bethsaida been done in Sodom, Sodom would have been hospitable.

Are you loving others, or trying to keep the rules?

Loving People. Loving God.

How do we know?

Dear friends, don’t believe every spirit. Test the spirits to see if they are from God because many false prophets have gone into the world. This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God, and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world. You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. So they speak from the world’s point of view and the world listens to them. We are from God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:1-6, CEB)

According to this reading, we are to test the spirit and see if it is of God.

Well, exactly how do we do that? The author of 1 John says, “This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God, and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God.”

Ok. I know people who say homosexuality is an abomination and they confess Jesus as the Son of God and I know people who say homosexuality is not an abomination and they confess Jesus as the Son of God, so which spirit is of God? It is not as clear cut as this reading seems to make it. And the author says they have all of the right answers, and if you do not listen to them then you are wrong. That sounds a lot like the sides of the issue I talked about above. Neither side has all the right answers. We think we all read the scripture the way God intended, but when we are never challenged or pushed then we are making God in the image we have for God and it really isn’t God.

So if you are always right and never challenged, I think you are not actually following God.

Follow God. When it’s easy and when it’s not.

And love everyone.

Loving People. Loving God.

Love

You don’t need us to write about loving your brothers and sisters because God has already taught you to love each other. In fact, you are doing loving deeds for all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. Now we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do so even more. Aim to live quietly, mind your own business, and earn your own living, just as I told you. That way you’ll behave appropriately toward outsiders, and you won’t be in need. (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, CEB)

We shouldn’t have to write about love because we should love because God loved us.

We can encourage each other to do more and to always be more loving.

How can you be more loving to those around you today?

Loving People. Loving God.

rewarded?

“Those who receive you are also receiving me, and those who receive me are receiving the one who sent me. Those who receive a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Those who receive a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. I assure you that everybody who gives even a cup of cold water to these little ones because they are my disciples will certainly be rewarded.” (Matthew 10:40-42, CEB)

If you receive a prophet you will get a prophet’s reward…

If you receive a righteous person you will receive a righteous person’s reward…

If you give a cup of cold water to these little ones because they are my disciples you will be rewarded…

Why do we do good?

From this passage, we do good for what we get. But that is not why we should do good.

The reward is the cherry on top. We do not do good for the cherry. We do good because good was done to/for us and doing good is the loving thing to do.

We love because we are loved. We do not love to be loved.

So do good, not for what you get but because of what you already have.

Loving People. Loving God.

Restore

That same year, early in the rule of Judah’s King Zedekiah, in the fifth month of his fourth year, the prophet Hananiah, Azzur’s son from Gibeon, spoke to me in the Lord’s temple before the priests and all the people. He said: “The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. In two years I will restore to this place all of the temple equipment that Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar carted off to Babylon. I will also restore to this place Judah’s King Jeconiah, Jehoiakim’s son, along with all the exiles from Judah who were deported to Babylon, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 28:1-4, CEB)

We need to be patient and wait. Endure and hope.

God will restore this place.

Have faith and hope always.

Loving People. Loving God.